Now this is the best comment among them. "But one of your basic assumptions, if I understand correctly, is that commercial farmers grow determinates sprawled to achieve greater production. But keep in mind that there are several other factors too that determine why they grow they way they do." It is not a cheap attempt at reconciliation its simply dead on. I hope I don't break any hearts when I say commercial growers are better at growing food than we are. I also believe McDonalds is a first rate cuisine given its mandate being edible, fast and cheap. I just go there for the clean bathrooms when I travel. So why do we gardeners buck the trend and take on an entity that we in no way could compete against? Because they don't serve us to the same degree. Many people in the US just don't care how food tastes or are not willing to spend the time or the money. In my field I also do stupid things because that is what the market demands. Commercial growers are not stupid but their customers in my opinion are, relatively speaking. People in our market will choose unblemished fruit based on price over good tasting food. They don't want to know how its made or where it came from. That is the market. When I was in Hungry the waiter brought me a fish to display the daily special. A whole fish with the head and all and not a machine cut fillet? In the US it may as well be a fresh pig's head. I prefer the feet because they make some of the finest soup stocks but does not hide its fundamental nature as well as a can. Commercial growers use determinate paste tomatoes for canning because it is cheaper to use wide open spaces and harvest all at once. Growing up on vines is not efficient because land is cheap. In a green house each square foot is expensive so they grow on vines up. Thick skinned varieties are preferable because they ship. Supermarket strawberries taste bad for straw berries but ship very well. One of my favorite wines, red Zinfindel, has some of the oldest vines in the country because its thick skinned grapes were ideal during prohibition. There was still a market because making you own wine was still legal. In this case the thick skin makes great jammy red wine. So basically the bush beans you plant often have mechanical harvesting needs bred into it. The goal is to fruit all at once and be a uniform height, resist disease and have no blemish. Now I want some of that. I do want to resist disease but not always because I believe I may control it for a better tasting variety. That is some of what is behind the heirloom trend. I like bush beans because I can put those on southern exposures. I grow pole beans on northern exposures. The reason why the home gardener beats the commercial grower in areas of taste, nutrition and hygiene is because the home gardener has some of the smartest consumers. However I do respect how well the pros satisfy ignorance and can certainly learn from them. Since I am in the space restricted camp I pay attention to green house growing.

THere is no possible place to build east of me. There is one house there now and then the river.....THere is no possibilty of ruining the view. The river corridor right here has been zoned as a park and it is not possible to build right here. I talked to the zoning people and he said I could build and that the only thing that would interfere would be a neighbor complaint. Yes, you lived real close to where I am now. I dont know how long ago you lived here but it's condoville now everywhere!!!! This whole area has changed. I am aware that I need a variance. Like I said the neighors right next to me built a garage with an apartment too. Now im looking at my house and thinking about a remodel but at the same time it seems to me that would be a costly event too! Im thinking it would be cheaper for me to build and have some one help pay the mortgage.

Thanks everyone for your posts. Big thanks for dreamhome for his detailed post. Our lot is in old, mixed neighborhood. We have a 400k property adjacent to ours, we also have 150-200k properties next to us. Overall, we think of our neighborhood as "nice", not upscale by any means, but not ghetto either. However I don't really understand what does neighborhood has to do with cost of construction. The construction process and cost of materials should be the same for any neighborhood, right? (we do own the land already) Our first house was fully custom - everything in it was custom, floor to ceiling windows,open staircase, heated floors etc... Unfortunately, in my town everybody was just scratching their heads when I showed them elements of the house I wanted to build, and they said "uhhhhhmmm, never done this before, don't know how much it will cost, need one month to research". I forgot I don't live in major metrolpolitan area where people are used to something more than Walmart. I looked over at least 50 000 stock house plans, every single house plan site on the first 100 pages of google, exclusive plans and so on... I checked local construction firms plans, we found one plan that was very pretty outside, while offering all the space we need in a small square footage package, and we fell in love with it (we're very picky) and we want to stick with it. It's a pretty stock plan that doesn't require anything fancy, and we don't want hardwood floors, carpet is fine with us. Two-three years ago my cousin built their own house (2300sq ft) for 120k. Now they were fighting for every dollar of course, getting competitive quotes for everything, really getting the best deal for every single service and material... and in the end they built their house (pretty decent house dare I say) dirt cheap. Which makes us wonder if we should just forgo hiring greedy contractors altogether and just... do it ourselves. I have the winter coming, good time to read construction books and educate myself... I will of course have my select contractors bid against each other, but if they don't go down in their quotes much...

"Talk to your architect they will have a much better idea than any of us." I respectfully-- and whole-heartedly--disagree. Asking an architect to estimate current construction costs is like driving using the rear view mirror as your guide. Dangerous, albeit less so in the mid-west or in Texas where you won't hit anything. Since the onset of Covid-19, we've been subject to volatile pricing for both construction materials and trade labor. Your architect doesn't purchase materials or trade labor. He/she will be a particularly bad source of information about current construction costs (that's a nice way of saying they don't have a clue.) You'll be just as well served if you ask your brother-in-law, sister-in-law or mother-in-law for their estimate of construction cost. If you'd like a more accurate projection of construction cost --albeit subject to the aforementioned volatility--consult a remodeler.